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US court to use biometric data by Facebook continues

A lawsuit brought by some residents of the US state of Illinois, continues. The complainants found that Facebook violates privacy laws by storing biometric data on the basis of faces in images.

Facebook claimed in the first round of the trial that it could not be brought under the privacy laws of Illinois, specifically the “Biometric Information Privacy Act. The court of Califirnische court ruled Thursday, however, that this argument is not valid and that the lawsuit can proceed. Both sides had previously agreed to transfer the case from Illinois to California, as reported Reuters.

The Verge report further states that the lawsuit is about whether tagging images by Facebook is a violation of user privacy. Facebook would process the biometric data of faces without explicit consent from its users. This data is then used to adjust for a particular tag. There is an opt-out possible, but it is unclear whether this can be seen as a form of consent.

A Facebook spokesperson told the site that “it is a matter of no importance and that Facebook will defend itself vigorously. The face detection function of Facebook is also controversial in Europe. For example, data protection authorities in Norway and Germany started a few years ago to examine the function.